In Her Time of Need
by blueheronz
Summary: What if Cameron sought out House instead of Chase after taking crystal meth? What if she delivered her "sex kills" speech to House instead of Chase? This is my take on what might occur. House and Cameron angst and romance.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Thanks to Sharp2799 for acting as beta on this story. I agonize over every draft so she really was very patient with me. Additionally, Kate J showed extraordinary generosity and insight as she read drafts and provided commentary and advice. Finally, Jovsg read an early draft and edited that draft, and a few others read drafts and helped me stay sane: Notably, AThousandSmiles and IWouldBeGood.

Also, to all who have added me to their favorites list, thanks! It's a compliment and I appreciate it. I do love to get comments and hope if you like this you'll consider letting me know in a review. Blue button, bottom of page.

This story is for Naika7 and IWouldBeGood for providing me with episodes of "Lost." Thanks, you two. And it's a belated birthday gift for my good friend Houseluvr.

For the curious, the title of this story is a reference to a Ryan Adams song.

* * *

The Picasso looks like a couple entwined, although it's far from figurative. House reads into things – even without factoring in those last few inches of bourbon.

_Analyze this_, Picasso says.

Anything to get his mind off Cameron and the overwhelming question (oh do not ask what is it): Is she positive or negative?

Slouched on the piano bench, his eyes make the rounds, scanning the wood and leather décor of his place, pausing to consider his objects d'art and all the personal touches that make these rooms his home. On the walls: Goldenrod paint. In the kitchen, above the state-of-the-art range: A set of copper pots. Artfully arranged and mounted: A series of black and white landscapes. The Picasso.

At the hospital he has his lobby art: Her name is Cameron.

His home could use a little something three-dimensional, he thinks sometimes.

The word "home" brings her to mind. Someone so caring should be homely, not beautiful enough to suck the air from a man's lungs and render him speechless. Yet she's an open door, a welcome mat, a hearth to arrange his furniture around.

That's on the one hand. That's House the aesthete.

Pain-driven House, dark House who seeks relief? Well, there's nothing _he_ can do to quell his belief that if he could part her, fuck her, know her, in one long steadfast thrust of his hard cock, he'd find home.

He'd make his connection.

_Open your legs_. It's what he wanted to say to Cameron today during HIV guy's differential. There was something in the way she sat, knees together, ankles primly tucked beneath her, wearing that ridiculous jumper that made him want to grab her by the hips and ass and raise her up against him.

Which is sexier? Her eyes on his, reading his mind and spreading her legs, offering him a view of her purple thong, or him grasping her knees, pulling them apart, yanking off her panties and ramming himself inside?

It's merely semantics. When their fingertips touch, he feels it in his gut and lower.

The air between them crackles.

Tonight he feels it still, a phantom memory. House rubs one hand over his heart; his other hand traces his cock through his jeans, tracing the evidence of something like love.

Where is she tonight? Somewhere in the darkness, nursing a drink of her own, contemplating mortality as she replays HIV guy's blood flying into her face?

_I'm infected. I'm not infected_.

He never even touched her arm. He never looked her in the eye. He offered her precisely nothing in her time of need.

To kill the sentiment that rises to the surface, he swigs more bourbon; ice a formality he's dismissed on this jag. Why bother? It'll melt. _And baby, it's cold outside._

Shapely painting, this Picasso. It puts him in mind of an hourglass, as curvy and voluptuous as Mae West, but blurry at the edges.

Why he bought the print, he can't recall. Inexplicably, it stirred him. He thought he could puzzle it out. So far, it has refused to be solved. He favors it with something like a smile.

It could be anything: a twisted paperclip, an "and" sign, bodies writhing. Tilt your head, look at it sideways and voila, a page from the _Kama Sutra_. Could be a disease to diagnose, a figure eight, lopsided and embellished, or the landscape of her body.

_Cameron_.

He shakes that one off.

Maybe it's the Maker's Mark. Or maybe he just needs to get laid, needs a distraction. He's got hooker #1 with her maraschino cherry lips on speed dial, but Cameron on his mind. If you say her name out loud in rapid succession it starts to sound like urgency in another language.

Damn the Hippocratic oath: _Do no harm. _Sometimes love hurts. It can be good. It would be with her. With Cameron, his little _I-can't-touch-that_.

House's tongue flicks across his lips. The gesture's habitual. Beneath his ass the bench is hard wood. He likes her eyes on his eyes, truth be told. If only it could stay like that.

He's dark tonight, gets Wilson on the line.

"What's more pathetic? An empty chair, a tree without leaves, or a single chopstick?" He delivers this Zen puzzle with his characteristic bite, forgoing hello.

For a moment it's quiet, then Wilson's carefully modulated voice weighs in: "A single chopstick. House? Are you drunk?"

He ends the call without an answer, stares up at the Picasso. _Analyze that._

Tonight it's the black t-shirt and jeans, cane at ease against the baby grand. From the blinds raised at half-mast, a full moon lights the sky. A neighborhood dog gets crazy. Another one howls a reply. The psych ward will be loony tonight, he thinks.

If they kissed, would she close her eyes? House hates himself when he gets like this. Hates her.

_Do you … like me? I have to know._

Maybe so. But do you really need to ask?

And come on._Like_? Is this junior high? _I like you. Do you like me?_ This scrawled childishly on a slip of paper, folded into a triangle, and passed a row up and to the left. _Like_ is rated G.

You asked the wrong question. I don't _like_ anyone.

The thought of you wasted with AIDS_? Immunologist, I am not immune to you. _

House takes a drink, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

It's not enough. The alcohol, the pills. They aren't enough to kill the pain in his thigh. Tonight it's like a nuclear reactor exploded. There's an orange glow. It's not enough to quiet the rat maze of his brain.

That corsage was a slip up. Renowned diagnostician solves beautiful young immunologist. _You don't love. You need_. But he had worn the sky blue shirt, chosen the corsage, and handpicked a restaurant that whispered romance.

He hadn't fooled her.

Blue veins stand out on his pale hands as they span the black and whites. House finds the chords to "A Shot in the Arm." Jeff Tweedy pre-treatment center. Jeff Tweedy on the dark side.

_Something in my veins, bloodier than blood. _

It's needle time.

* * *

She's a blur in the darkness, a speed demon, twitching at sounds, imaginary and real. The click of her heels on the cement, the chatter of sparrows in the barren branches, and in her eardrums, the beat of her telltale heart rap-rap-rapping at record time. Cameron bats at a snowflake, stops walking just long enough to raise her arms and offer up her palms to the spirals of new snow christening the streets of Princeton. _I am poetry in motion. I am a whirligig. _

_This is fun_. Is this fun? Would she even know? She passes a nightclub and the people in line check her out. Her faded jeans fit so well you can see the gap between her thighs. The green of her sweater vest salutes the color of her eyes. Her hair is loose. Her hips sway as she passes the crowd, sway in spite of herself, as she looks their way: They're beautiful. Every man and woman is decorated for the night out, each a Christmas tree, a carefully wrapped gift. A slender blonde raises a dark eyebrow at Cameron, a question mark in her eyes. Cameron shakes her head no. She can only break one rule at a time. Tonight it's danger, drugs, _do me. _ Just a few more blocks and, Jesus, what is she going to do with him?_ I am your secret sin. I am your 'one need in the night.' _House.

_I am a jagged edge. I am the end of the line. I am a new beginning. I am a little white lie._

Streetlights look like stars swirled, red-edged. Her mind is a heavy metal drummer. Her thoughts are like rush hour. Signs materialize: Caution. Stop. Beware. The crosswalk gives her the green light and she keeps walking. _I'm so ahead of myself._ She's stuck on a refrain that repeats itself with slight variation.

_You are my never say never. You are my guilty pleasure. You are my sooner or later. You are my one way or another. _

_I am your maybe someday. I am your better luck next time. I am your only lonely. I am your now or never._

Who knew blood moved so fast? Her toes and fingertips tingle. _I feel good. I knew that I could._

After six blocks the words crowding her mind are replaced by sheer physical need. Purity of heart is to will one thing – his touch in the dark. Just to rub against him like a crazy Siamese. She has turned into something singular: Desire.

The throbbing in her clit begs for release. For six blocks, the snug jeans have massaged her, transforming her walk into something sinuous and knowing. If he won't touch her, she'll touch herself. How fast can you get your pants off and your hand between your legs? If he sees her fingers making urgent circles on top her black lace panties, will he come to her? Lay his body over hers, spread her open? At the word "spread," blood rushes to her face, then lower.

She arrives breathless at his door.

_House. Open up. _

And the thing is, he does. A tumbler dangles between his thumb and forefinger; his other hand grips the cane.

Ordinarily, she'd pause to admire the pale hands with the blue veins. But that seems insignificant when six foot two inches of House _straight up, no chaser_ is close enough to touch.

Blue jeans, black tee. It's déjà vu. The same clothes he wore when she came to give notice during Vogler's reign. She came to set him free, but House wouldn't have it. He'd have done anything to get her back … to work.

_Stop thinking_. She orders herself to stop thinking and feel.

House squints down at her, face inscrutable. He's a locked door, she thinks, waiting to be picked.

* * *

"You're high." 

House states the obvious when he sees Cameron standing on his stoop, jittery as a junkie awaiting a fix. She bites a fingernail, shaking her head. Negative? Affirmative? It's hard to tell.

Running his thumb over the head of his cane House imagines her thumb brushing over the head of his prick: All this while searching her eyes. It's as if someone squeezed a drop of black ink into each iris, the pupils are pools.

Fine lines web the corners of his eyes, a glaze overlays the blue. Is it the alcohol or his throbbing thigh?

"You're in pain," her brow wrinkles at the thought. "Is it bad tonight?"

He sighs. Only Cameron could be revved on meth and caring at the same time. "It's never good," he replies, terse, and without a trace of sarcasm.

Her long chestnut hair falls around her face, which is bare, except for a swipe of lip-gloss and a hint of an emerald liner that accentuates her eyes. Sensuality mixes with the intelligence and inherent kindness that shapes the features he's memorized.

"Crystal meth. Not your style. Copped it off of our patient?" His tall, lean frame blocks the doorway.

"You're surprised," she states simply.

He seems bigger than life. His pectorals push against the cotton t-shirt. She feels as if she's Alice shrinking under his watchful gaze. Fidgeting at his scrutiny, she twirls a strand of hair, stares at the hollow of his throat, and moistens her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"I'm not surprised," he contradicts. "Given the circumstances. Guy spewed AIDS infected blood in your face. Might as well jump out of an airplane. That's a metaphor, by the way."

"You're not going to ask me why I'm here?" Cameron sidetracks.

_Hell no_.

House knows how meth affects the libido, notes the signs of arousal. Cameron's face says, _try me_. Her body says, _fuck me_. Her eyes say,_love me … if you dare._

_To be young is to be high, is to be sad_, House thinks, reading her mind. She's here to roll the dice, risk it all. She's here to live a little. She's here for the antidote to death: Sex – with her favorite mistake.

"Don't need to. Besides, ignorance is bliss."

"That's naive." She raises her eyes to his, looks at him from under long lashes.

All he can think of is her lower lip between his teeth. Mostly that.

"Last time you showed up you … quit. A noble gesture. Totally selfless. Don't do it again. It will only lead to me having to go to extraordinary measures to get you to come back, like agreeing to a date. Dinner." House throws her own words back in her face while making the prospect of dinner sound like one of Dante's Circles of Hell.

Her laugh is on the maniacal side. "Blah, blah, blah. I'm _high_."

She says it like it's a prize she won at a raffle.

"What comes up must come down," House says, pithy. He rolls his eyes, opening the door wider to let Cameron in, but she reaches for him and, instead of seeking the warmth of his living room, she tugs him outside. A feminine finger traces his bicep and he shivers. "You ... inhaled. Where there's a drug, there's a side effect. How does it feel?"

"You've never tried it?" she asks. "It's like someone turned up the volume on … everything. The physiology of it is pretty amazing. Didn't know my heart could beat this fast. Ever hear about Supernova 1987A? It was among the best and the brightest of all stars and it when it died it caused the most violent stellar explosion seen in modern times – an inferno brighter than 100 million suns. After the first toke, it was better than sex, better than the best I've ever had."

"And now?" He regards her face, rapt and glowing as she attempts to gather her thoughts.

_And now you lay your hands on me. And now it's all I can do not to cover you like a tattoo. I am indelible ink. You can never rub me off. I am your 'what good is it anyway?'_

As if he didn't know. He looks at her as if to prove the point.

Tonight Cameron's unbridled. There's crazy in her eyes. Her hair is a cloud. He takes in her profile, the white temptation of her throat as she gets off on the sky. An unfettered joy crosses her face and then whooshes off into the darkness like a falling star.

She's a firecracker, all lit up. Words fly out of her mouth like sparks: Staccato.

"Ever feel like you can't get close enough? Like it's not enough to look at the constellations, you want to be up there burning? Ever want someone so much that you know just one touch won't be enough? A kiss will burn and when you come together you'll cry because it'll be so right. And even when it's over and you pull apart there's still something between you. Leftovers that never get finished up. But none of this matters because you can never get close enough."

Is she talking to herself or to him? House finds that she's circled his wrist with her hand. The friction in the air as he pulls away is unsettling.

His voice sounds loud in his ears as he responds. "In case you haven't noticed, I like distance."

She moves closer to him, so their frosty breaths mingle, so her legs touch his. Her forehead rests for a moment on his chest.

And then she begins to pace.

House surveys the dark night. The moon has vanished, a magician's sleight of hand on an epic scale. In the glow of the lamp thick flakes of snow twirl down from a black sky in mesmerizing patterns.

The cold air sobers him; her warmth crosses his threshold.

This is the woman who breaks his heart and puts it back together again. She always looks smaller in street clothes, without the lab coat to make her official.

Tonight she's a queen in faded jeans and a simple sleeveless v-neck, a leather jacket over top. Her breastbone begs for his fingertips and the little mole above her left breast always fucks with his resolve. Those clothes on that body are visuals that reach out and touch his cock as if they were hands. He watches innocence and experience play across her face like a pair of dragonflies.

Tearing her eyes from the wonders of the sky, she considers House. God, her clit throbs. She finds herself uttering the first thing that pops into her mind. "What would you say if I told you that I'm on the job tonight? That I'm turning tricks to supplement my salary, and you're my next John, Greg?"

Her insouciance knocks him off-kilter. His first name is a punishment.

"I'd say, 'less talk, more tongue.' What would you say if I told you that you have about the same chance of pulling off a role as a prostitute as Julia Roberts?"

"Oh, House. Give it a rest. Just because I'm high doesn't mean that this isn't real, or that I'm not me. You should know that better than anyone. Don't be a buzz kill." With an effort she stands still.

"Okay … You came to me because you think you might be HIV positive. You're afraid."

She laughs it off distractedly. "You know why I'm here? I came here to tell you that you're right."

He sips the bourbon for warmth.

"About?"

"Me. You said I don't love, I need. And you were right." She takes a deep breath. Her mouth makes a perfect 'oh' shape as she blows out the air like a smoke ring into the cold. She puts a hand on his chest to steady herself. Her voice is quiet, low. "I need you."

He sidesteps her confession.

"You should know better than to believe what I say. I lied. Of course you love. I've never met anyone more capable of love," A flicker of warmth in his eyes reminds her that he said he wouldn't crush her. "Need is what makes us human. Right now your brain is telling your body that you need to get some. For once you may have come to the right place. But in the interest of full disclosure you should know that you're wrong."

"About?"

"Me," House says matter-of-factly. "You said the things I do, I do because they're right. You said that's what you … liked about me. The things I do, most of the time, I do because I want to do them, no matter what the consequences. Still need me?"

Cameron shrugs, helplessly. "Need you. Want you."

She takes the bourbon from him and drinks it down, tossing the Waterford tumbler into the bushes. Gripping a handful of his shirt, she raises herself on tiptoes, brushing her lips across his mouth.

They're so warm, those lips, on his. She has infiltrated his space at his own invitation, he thinks. _Don't tell her that she's come to the right place – don't tell her that the things you do, you do because you want to do them, no matter what the consequences – if you aren't prepared to see it to the finish._ If she needed drugs as an excuse to fuck, she should have gone to Chase. _He_ wouldn't have hesitated.

Bob Dylan telling it like it is, he thinks._ It's not me you're looking for. _

He tolerates the kiss, but stands his ground, tight-lipped, resisting an overwhelming desire to close his eyes and lean against the doorway, to pull her into his arms, give in, and save both of them some time. She smells like the winter night with after notes of a simple French scent barely discernible. He wants to taste her, to find the warmth of her mouth, to shut off his mind and give in to pure sensation.

As her hands move to his face, he grabs her shoulders, steering her toward the warmth of his living room.

"When …_Freud_ wrote about the pleasure principle, he must have meant that it was just another form of hedonism, like, if it feels good, do it, even if you shouldn't." Cameron laughs. "I'm all ID tonight."

"If you're coming in," House orders, "leave Freud at the door."

He shuts it behind them.

Once inside, Cameron pins him up against the door. She can't stop touching him. Her hands explore his chest, his stomach, his face, and he allows it, listening to her rapid-fire monologue.

She can't stop talking. It's a disease he can't treat unless he kisses her quiet.

"Ever think about what our bodies go through when we have sex? Pupils dilate, arteries constrict, core temperature rises, heart races, blood pressure skyrockets, respiration becomes rapid and shallow, the brain fires bursts of electrical impulses from nowhere to nowhere and secretions spit out of every gland, and the muscles tense and spasm like you're lifting three times your body weight. It's violent, it's ugly, and it's messy, and if it weren't unbelievably fun ... the human race would have died out eons ago. Too bad men can have only one orgasm."

She grips his face, forcing him to look at her, to look deep. Beneath the desire there's fear, a great recklessness brought on by anxiety. _Am I infected? _House softens at the sight of it.

In her time of need she came to his door.

"I've made myself come eight times in a row, not that I was counting. Did you know that women could have hour-long orgasms? Have you ever made anyone come like that? If you did, you'd feel like a god. Oh. That's right. You already feel like God. Right now just … anything could set me off. If you start me up I swear I will never stop."

She pauses for breath, managing to look winsome. "Help me off with my coat?"

He recognizes her jacket. It's the one she wore to the Monster Trucks rally. He remembers the astonished, delighted expression on Cameron's face at the sheer fun of the preening drivers maneuvering the caricatured trucks, the din of the motors, the Roman coliseum spectacle. What could be more normal than pink and blue cotton candy, sharing a sugary confection on a stick?

_What if she gets sick? _He's not like Wilson. His patients seldom die.

House reaches for her collar, easing the coat off her shoulders, surprised as his fingers brush the warm naked skin of her nape. _This is a mistake. _The petals of the corsage roses weren't nearly so soft.

His eyes travel the length of her, sightseeing. Her small breasts swell under the soft sweater, and the stiffened nipples proclaim she's not wearing a bra.

Her ankle high boots squeak as she walks past him and into the living room. His eyes follow the shape of her ass, noting the way her hair swings over her shoulder blades. A thought of taking her from behind stirs his cock, making him oblivious to anything but the need to feel her sweet rounded ass beneath his palms, to rub up against her hard.

There's a tightening in the front of his jeans as his prick bulges, brushing against the cotton of his boxer briefs. It's an angry erection, jutting hard against his inseam.

_This is happening. _

But not tonight. Not like this. The state she's in, she'll do anything for his hands on her skin. He thinks about clinic duty, the idiocy of the patients, the shriveled up yanks of the geezers and the gaping vaginas of the old wizened hags. Anything but the open offer in front of him.

He tosses her coat over the back of the couch and contemplates broaching the subject of the anxiety he spied in her eyes a moment ago. Takes a pass.

Without a word, she reaches for the snap of her jeans. There's not much need for talk: Her intentions are written in her eyes.

House is an inanimate object, a soldier, a statue, as she steps toward him, placing a hand on his heart, and tracing the outline of his erection with slim fingers. He swells beneath her touch.

He loses his grip on his cane, but he stands his ground. He won't for long.

"You … want me." Cameron's hands move up and over the sensitive skin of his stomach, and then dip into the waistband of his jeans to grasp the evidence.

House sucks in his breath. "Who wouldn't? Like it or not, you're beautiful, a work of art."

"As art you'd put in a lobby, I … work for you. You can look but you're afraid to touch."

_He will touch her. His hands are already roving over her body, molding her to him, working the green sweater off of her pale freckled skin. _

There is a pause and she pulls her hand from his pants. He can feel where her fingers touched his nakedness. Before he speaks, there's a pause. For a moment, in the room, except for the sound of their breathing, it is quiet.

"I'm not afraid," he says, finally. "You are. Of getting tested. Of getting the results. Because if you're sick, who's going to do for you what you did for him? For your husband?"

Balling her fists, she hits him, ineffectually, in the chest. "You can be a real bastard. What you really want to know is if your theory is right. Yes, House. I'm afraid. You happy now?"

"Far from it. You're a doctor. You know as well as I do that everybody dies. If you came to me because you wanted to hear that everything's okay and you'll be fine, you came to the wrong man, but I can get Wilson on the line," House reached around her for his phone. "The facts are these: You were exposed to the HIV virus and although the odds are against it, you could be infected. You … need to be tested. Did you really think that meth would be fun while you were eyeball to eyeball with Mr. Death? Gotta save the good stuff for when you're in your happy place."

"I don't have a happy place." It's a whisper.

His eyes on hers, he processes her confession.

And yet she rebounds with alacrity. "And neither do you. What hurt more, House? Losing the use of your leg or losing Stacy?"

When he remains silent, eyes circling the room, she answers for him.

"For you, they're inseparable. There wouldn't be one without the other. But I'm curious. Did the leg just speed along the process? From what I hear you were miserable before the infarction."

"I told you. I'm damaged," he says, unflappable. "If you want to know more, I suggest breaking into my therapist's office."

Cameron laughs. "That would be poetic justice if you had a therapist. Unless you meant Wilson." Her laugh fades to a mere smile. "Of course I could always torture him until he talked. But you know, the way you reacted to your father when he visited? You'd have done anything to avoid seeing him. I'd say it took more than muscle death and a bad break up to inflict _that_ kind of damage."

"Don't try to pick me apart," he says, a warning edging his words.

The meth along with a dose of indignation speeds up her response.

"Don't tell me what to do. With you, there's always a double standard. You tell me how it is with me, why I chose to marry, and what I'm capable of in terms of loving another man." She steps up closer to him, arms folded across her chest. "You tell me I don't love, I need. And yet for sex, all you can manage is hookers. Anything else would be … personal. You say you're complicated. I say you're afraid. You want to talk about fear? Then tell me. What are you so afraid of?"

He lets out a breath of air he didn't know he was holding. He looks at her small, lithe body. When she comes on strong like this it's in contrast to vulnerability he observes in the birdlike bone structure and intrinsic sincerity of her face. This verbal volley isn't a game to her.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe it."

She cocks her head at him, considering.

"You know what the lawyers always say in those courtroom dramas? Never ask a question unless you already know the answer. I know what you fear." Her voice goes low, as it's wont to do. "You fear your feelings … for me. You fear this, and how it makes you feel."

Linking her hands behind his neck, she pushes her lips against his, the gentlest imaginable kiss. Sliding her hands down his muscular back, she pushes up against him as her mouth moves to his jaw line.

Her clit throbs.

Now that her mind rests, laziness overtakes her limbs and she offers the love she has for him in tiny little kisses. Now his cheekbone, now the corner of his mouth, now his forehead where he's always tense.

It's the gentleness, the deliberation of her every move that hurts him. Actions don't lie. Not as much as words. He feels the love behind her movements so when he brushes his knuckles between her legs, it's in spite of himself.

Cameron wraps a leg around his ass, squeezing so her clit makes contact, and rubs herself against him, letting out a little cry of frustration when that doesn't prove to do the trick.

"Look, House. You know where I'm coming from tonight. My body's calling the shots. If you don't ... if you won't ... get me off, I'm gonna do it myself."

He feels her hand move down between her legs and she touches herself through the faded denim.

"If I have sex with you all night -- and believe me, on meth that's what it's going to have to be -- you'll hate yourself in the morning. You'll hate me." Her body against him fits. It nearly undoes him.

"I hate you now." She pushes him away and then contradicts herself by yanking him back and kissing him hard on the mouth. Her cool palms find the rope of his spine under his shirt.

_Don't kiss back. _

But her tongue traces his lower lip and she parts his mouth with its tip until, driven by the insistence of his pulsing shaft, he responds. Her hands move over his erection and she pulls up his tee, twirling her tongue around his naval, and then his nipple.

How does she know to do that? That it makes him want to shred her shirt with his bare hands, make her naked and pull her onto his hard thick cock?

This has to stop.

He grasps her by her upper arms, and then regrets it. Her skin is a silk scarf; a whisper in the dark, and touching could be habit forming for a man like him.

Clinging to him like cellophane, she proves to be stronger than she looks. In an effort to physically pull her off of him, he slammed her into the wall, harder than he planned. He hears the sound of her skull against the wood and the little gasp she makes as she lets go of him. The Picasso, mounted on the wall above them, trembles at the impact and comes to rest on a slant.

He stumbles away from her, trying to catch his breath, and watching as she leans her head back against the plaster, her eyes wide with comprehension.

In his eyes she reads regret and, yes, he's complicated. _I am your 'I can't go for that.'_ There's nothing he wants more than to have her, nothing except a healthy leg – she can see it. And what's more, she sees that this time, holding back is a real sacrifice. _You are my 'maybe someday.'_

For a moment they stand there. The furnace clicks and heat warms the townhouse. Off in the distance, the insistent sound of sirens. Her faded jeans with the snap undone remind him of how lovely her body is and the promise of its gentle curves and hollows waiting for him just beneath her clothes. Still hard, his erection is discernible under his jeans and she notes that fact, her eyes traveling up to his neck, which she's neglected to kiss, and the mixed message of his face.

Finally she pushes herself off the wall. "I'll get my coat," she says quietly, turning toward the couch.

He grabs her arm. "Take my bed," he says, lightly running his hand over the back of her head to make sure she isn't hurt. There's no bump. "Don't want you walking home in the dark feeling the way you do."

Limping toward his bedroom, he tucks sheets, blankets, and a pillow from his linen closet under his arm so he can make up the couch for himself. A pair of drawstring pajama bottoms and a clean white t-shirt to sleep in, he decides, opening a drawer. As an afterthought, he digs to the bottom of the drawer until he finds the garment he's looking for wadded up and shoved in the corner. Pulling it from the drawer he unfurls it, tossing it to Cameron.

Shooting him a quizzical look, she lays the size small tee on the bed and smoothes the blue cotton, reading the words printed upon it: _Lawyers do it on a Trial Basis. _

Glancing up to meet his eyes, a shadow of a sad smile crosses her face. "Doctors do it for Life."

House's mouth curves slightly upward at the irony of her words. "Keep it. Or toss it." He sizes her up. "It'll be a little big for you."

_But you'll grow into it. You'll outgrow it. _

"From what I hear Wilson always gets the couch," she remarks, plopping herself down on the bed, with Stacy's old tee crumpled in her lap.

"You're not Wilson." His eyes move from her face traveling the length of her body and leaving her with no doubt about the strength of his attraction, the deepness of his desire, or the nature of his feelings. "Get some sleep," he mutters, staring down at her small form on the big bed.

He'd like to hold her, touch her, to fuck her all night long.

Instead he limps out of the room with his bedding. "House?" she calls softly after him. "No harm done."

* * *

Without House to focus on, her mind races, producing a mishmash of facts and images. It is as if she's a remote control and someone keeps changing the channels. 

A hummingbird's heart rate can reach up to 1,260 beats per minute and from the way her own heart has pounded since she smoked the Crystal into her quicksilver bloodstream she knows how it feels.

There's a buzzing in her ears like the sound of a hummingbird's wings flapping up to 80 times per second or thereabouts. The tiny iridescent creatures are capable of sustained hovering. She can relate after hovering around House for the past two years.

They eat up to 50 of their own body weight, depending on whom you ask – hummingbirds. Tom would have known – oh, Tom. Don't think of your dead husband at a time like this, even if he was the king of Trivial Pursuit – but he metastasized so quickly and House was right about death. It's never dignified.

At any given moment hummingbirds are only hours away from starving. Now that's a metabolism that a supermodel would kill for …

House was close tonight. He looked at her through the glass like he does sometimes and then he shattered it. Did they take a step forward or a step back? Where is Wonderland anyhow? Oh, Alice, and all your nonsense. _Drink me. Eat me._

Competing with her fragmented thoughts is the need to touch her swollen aching clit and she strips off her jeans and panties, pulling the v-neck over her head and foregoing Stacy's t-shirt.

_I will never wear it. _

Pulling the duvet off the bed, she flops on top of the cool cotton sheets sweating from the meth and sticks a hand between her legs. Despite her deft finger work, she can't get off, and still the desire won't abate.

Rolling onto her stomach she pictures his face looking up at her on the bed, feels his phantom cock as she grinds herself down on it. Remember the ridge of it through his jeans beneath her fingertips and the taste of bourbon on his mouth.

It's no use.

Finally her heart slows and her mind quiets and she stops thinking of his flawed body stretched out and probably in pain in the living room and remembers the feeling she used to get as a girl sitting in the back seat of the family car looking up at the clouds through the back window. It was a sixth sense that appeared only to vanish but as it passed over her it was this: the absolute knowledge that out there somewhere was another person who would know her the way the minister said God would. He would look at her, and she at him and something would pass between them that could never dissolve. Who knew they would get so wounded on their way to one another she wondered as she drifted off into the welcome oblivion of sleep.

* * *

In the still of the night House wakes. 

It isn't a gradual drifting-up-from-a-dream return to consciousness. It's an immediate alertness honed after years of medical school, residency, and being on call. Any small noise in the night can slice sleep from its counterpart. Sometimes it's Steve McQueen giving his wheel a spin, or the neighbor's high-strung yippy dog opining about a scent caught in the wind.

Tonight it's nothing that wakes him.

There's nothing like the concept of nothingness to suck you out of the brief comfort of sleep, he thinks, rubbing his hands over his face and sitting up, clutching his pain-riddled right leg. The couch groans under his weight as he shifts, easing his legs around so his feet touch the cool wood floor.

This is his punishment for studying physics along with the grueling pre-med college curriculum: To wake up in the middle of the night aware of a pressing stillness like the force of what physicists call dark energy, particles no one can see but which nonetheless push apart the universe at an ever-accelerating rate of speed.

Every second there's more and more nothing, he thinks, but it beats a God who crushes people as if they were insects, who creates cancers and perpetuates car wrecks and allows child abusers to thrive while infants die before they can be diagnosed and treated. It beats a God who could conceive of infecting someone as caring as Cameron with AIDS.

He sighs.

In the darkness of his living room, it's palpable, the stillness. There's so much silence it hums.

A swath of light from his bedroom cuts across the oriental carpet.

Cameron sleeps in his bed.

The remnants of his right quads remind him that he's overdue for a dose of Vicodin. A bottle of pills is where he left it – on his bedside bureau. Hunched on the couch, cane between his legs, he sits thinking.

He could grab tablets from the pocket of his sports coat. It's draped over a kitchen chair. Pushing himself off the couch leaning heavily on the cane, he heads in the opposite direction, toward his room and Cameron.

She's draped on top of the bed, deeply asleep on her stomach, he sees once the darkness settles. Streetlamps cast a dim light through the room, bathing her naked form in blue. Her skin is glossy, damp like morning dew. As an adjective, 'beautiful' seems too worn for her lovely limbs and lissome frame. She possessed a willowy shape that bewitched him. Drawing up a chair beside the bed, he watches her sleep as his erection stirs, surveying her with the intensity of a cinematographer bent on recording every curve.

Her legs are slightly spread and he can see the gap where her firm and rounded ass slopes down into her sex. One arm is crooked beneath her head, cradling it while the other arm stretched out toward the edge of the bed. Her small hand curls like a seashell and he looks at her slim fingers and the little knuckles, resisting the impulse to trace the metacarpals. That same hand caressed his scruffy cheek, traced the shape of his cock through his jeans, reaching beneath the waistband of his pants and touching it. He imagines her hand circling his engorged prick, sliding slickly up and down his shaft and over the head.

A strand of hair has fallen into her face and each time she exhales, it puffs out. He watches her for a while, watches her rhythmic breathing, struck by how dark her hair looked against milky skin.

_You may look but you musn't touch_, his mom had reminded him whenever she took him to museums in the places where his father was stationed. Standing in front of a sculpture of a goddess, regarding the cool marble of its surface, he lifted his hand and touched the rounded breast, trailing fingers over the sternum, slope of belly and the inner thigh.

His curiosity has always been tactile.

Slowly he lifts his hand and brushes her hair back from her face so it spills over her neck and pools at her nape, his knuckles gently skimming her cheek. Stroking the shining mass of hair with his palm, he marvels at how soft it is - like cashmere. Leaning his head down to hers, he breaths in her smell, the clean botanicals of her shampoo. He can hear her even breathing.

If she gets AIDS? He closes his eyes. All death is without dignity but to die like that, shitting your pants, your flesh stretched over your bones, your unbelievably beautiful eyes sunk in their sockets? If this were the fate in store for Cameron, a woman who wed a terminal cancer case so someone would be with him in his final days, so someone would remember him and preserve his name …

Then what?

_You going to spoon feed her broth, wipe up her sweat with a warm washcloth, clean up her vomit, wipe her ass when she has diarrhea in her hospice bed, hold her wafer thin hand, and press her skin and bones body to your own to try and keep her warm? _

_And before she's symptomatic, are you going to give her a life, Christmas trees decorated with candy canes, a single pearl on a silver chain, sex on every conceivable surface and deep mind blowing orgasms, or just rub cinnamon oil on the pads of her feet, up and over her metatarsals, and between her toes? Will you take her on dates? Let her find out what makes you tick?_

Think I can do that.

Cameron is already immune deficient. Caring too much will have that effect. Let your guard down and you open yourself up to whatever come what may.

Her shoulder blades are like wings; her bones are fine and delicate. He looks at her on the bed and the desire to climb up beside her is nearly insurmountable.

Instead he slowly and deliberately reaches out and touches the soft bare skin of her back, so warm beneath his fingers, so alive. From the nape of her neck to the soles of her slender feet, his hands mold her shape with a possessiveness that surprises him, fingertips lightly touching the silky skin between her shoulders, moving over the curve of her spine dipping into the small of her back where he rubs his thumb over the dimples right above her ass. He loves the little hollow that curves up into the smooth flawless skin of her taut rounded buttocks.

For a moment he hesitates, and then he cups her ass with his big palms before continuing to lightly touch the velvety skin of her inner thighs.

Or maybe she'll be fine, he thinks, his hand resting on her thigh as he watches her. A moment passes, and finally he pulls a blanket over her nakedness.

Tomorrow when she wakes he'd like to be there to see her open her eyes.

He isn't going anywhere.

* * *

A/N: So I'm considering writing a follow up to this. What do you think? Want to read more? 


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to my beta, Sharp 2799, for all of her help. Thanks as well to AthousandSmiles for catching typos and for reading an early draft and helping to shape it. Finally, thanks to Jesmel for looking it over.**

**Comments are appreciated. Blue button, bottom of page.**

* * *

In the wee hours House nods off, slumped in the armchair by her bedside. The arch of his bare foot rests against the warm skin of her naked thigh.

The high-pitched wail of a siren in the distance wakes him at twilight, that and the bum leg. Pain takes him to the edge of sleep and meets him at first light. It penetrates the landscapes of his dreams.

He rises, clutching at his stiff leg, and stumbles to the window to parts the blinds. Outside as the earth tilts and the sun edges upward, an indigo light falls upon the snow, the tree-lined street, and the brownstones across from his townhouse.

What do the French call it, this pocket of time that hovers between day and night? The blue hour, he thinks. _L'heure bleue._

He often wakes at this time of night – this time of day. The hour is blue indeed, he knows. Doubt creeps in with consciousness.

_Time to hide the razorblades_.

If he has a case, he's all right. If he has to work through the night, even better. Diagnostics keeps his mind whirring like the blades of a helicopter, scythe-like. Morbid reflection will kill him long before his liver wizens.

A seizure of pain grips his leg so that his first thoughts are not of Cameron, naked and lissome in his bed, but of Vicodin.

He slowly swivels, memorizing the sight of her as she sleeps, her slenderness exposed, her shoulder blades wings, her ass so perfect and round he wants to sink his teeth into it.

With an eye roll, he turns from the tableau, gripping his cane until his knuckles turn white.

Last night he kissed her back.

For as long as he could, he stood still while she pressed her body against his and palmed his erection and kissed along his jaw until she reached his lips. If he hadn't been half in the bag from the bourbon, he would have sent her away. She could have found someone in a second, someone to fuck her into a stupor. There were plenty of men who wouldn't think twice about taking advantage of a high and horny widow. If he had banished her back out into the night, someone like … Chase, he thought, finally, would have been her second choice, and his Machiavellian intensivist was imminently persuadable. Butpicturing her with another man made him strangely uncomfortable.

The swell of her breast is just visible as she lies on her stomach on the bed. Last night she was high, vulnerable. This morning, if she still wants him – and that thought alone makes his prick start to throb – well, why the hell not? He's out of excuses.

He limps heavily into the living room, and eyes the box he keeps hidden on a top shelf, arms folded against his chest. Morphine, the gold standard of opiates, like a priceless perfume, is kept in tiny vials in that treasure trove. _His goodies_. Except there's nothing good about the constant need for a moment's peace from pain.

Propping his cane against the piano, he hobbles around the living room clutching the offending limb to get the blood flowing. Is this what he gets for spending the night hunkered in an armchair watching a naked woman sleep and not doing a thing about it? Justice comes in many forms.

To distract his mind from the necrosis, he does anagrams, screws with the letters of her name.

_When you can't do any better than "care, Mon" for 'Cameron,' as if you were a Bob Marley beatnik working for UNICEF, you know the pain's bad_, he thinks with a grimace.

He scrambles letters like eggs in a pan. His head hurts. His eyes burn. _Good fucking morning, Greg. _Words form from her name and his. It's an idiotic exercise for a man like him, a man who regards sentiment as a cheap, easy substitute for rational thought, and thus, unacceptable … except for when your heart leaves you no choice.

'Cameron' romance._ Talk about poetic justice. What a bunch of crap._

If he pairs her name with his – Allison House – he gets "his soul alone." If he combines both their last names, he gets "ache enormous."

_Yeah. That fits. _

It's Vicodin time.

Tipping pills, plural, into his hand, he heads to the kitchen for a glass of water to wash them down. No need to go all Steve McQueen and dry swallow 'em when there's no one around to appreciate the tough guy act.

Frozen cubes clink against each other as he holds a tumbler under the ice dispenser. Light from the fridge yellows his face as he pulls out a chilled Perrier and pours it into the glass. For a moment, he leans against the sink holding the cold tumbler against his forehead, and then he downs it as if he were a Russian and the clear liquid was vodka.

He refills his glass.

Leaving it on the counter, he goes to the bathroom, emptying a bladder full of bourbon. Washing his hands, he views his reflection in the mirror, philosophically. The pattern of the chair's upholstery is pressed into his face and his eyes are bloodshot. He swipes a hand over his hair and fluffs it where it has thinned. It's a habit leftover from Stacy. A vestige of vanity.

Still in his pajama bottoms and white tee, he retrieves the glass of ice water and returns to his bedroom, sinking back into the chair.

He looks at her.

Is _this_ the woman who appeared at his door, speed-addled and horny as an African bullfrog? Did she really grope him shamelessly and indulge in a talking jag that would rival Robin Williams after a cocaine binge?

On the floor he sees her clothes strewn: The faded jeans, the green sweater, a pair of lace panties that he can all too well picture accentuating her taut buttocks and barely covering her sex. Only one garment is neatly folded and carefully laid on his dresser: Stacy's t-shirt. _Of course she wouldn't wear it._

He scratches at the new scruff covering his jaw. Why isn't he in the bed with her, wrapped around her slight form, finding rest in her physical proximity? What, after all, does he have to lose?

In sleep, her face is innocent and relaxed. The only evidence of her night of excess and wantonness is smudged makeup around her eyes. Her lashes are dark against her pallor and a tiny blue vein pulses near the line of her jaw. Her mouth is an invitation, and hair splays out on the pillow.

She turns onto her side and tucks her arms into her chest so her chin rests on her fists. The curve running from hip to the warm ridge of her ribs reminds him of the sinuous shape of desert sand formations. Her hip is thrust out at a jaunty angle and one leg is positioned in a classic runner's pose.

_In his mind, her legs are slightly spread. In his mind his tongue circles the bud of her clit, her pelvis rising to meet him, as he tastes her._

After a moment, he pulls the sheet up to her shoulders.

A part of him wants to let her sleep. And then there's the part of him that's pissed off at her peace.

All things must pass.

Behind closed lids, her eyes scan back and forth like a speed-reader's, signaling a REM cycle. Her brows crease and her face tenses. Her mouth moves, mumbling something he can't discern. House listens for sleep talk, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees until his shoulders hunch and his face is close to hers.

If anyone were to walk in and see them, they'd observe this scene: Him, unshaven and serious, watching her – asleep and nude like something out of Picasso's blue period. They'd see her turn and toss, grabbing a handful of the sheets as she dreamed. They'd see him extend his arm, hesitate, then reach out and lay his hand on her head, smoothing her hair, before lowering it back to rest on his knee.

Her mouth moves again, and this time he can make out a few words.

"Not yet," she murmurs. "Wait. Three more breaths."

More will be revealed, it is said, and so he holds vigil until dawn breaks and light leaks through the blinds, crisscrossing over her shape.

House waits for her to give something away.

He waits, too, for the Vicodin to kick in, but his thigh feels as if it's pressed in a waffle iron.

When he's sure that nothing more is forthcoming, he pushes back the chair and lurches to the bed, driven by pain to do something, anything: To act.

Dipping his fingers in the glass, he flicks ice water at her face. Droplets slip off her skin like tears.

"No. Not like this. Not yet," she moans, still stuck in a dream, and clearly distressed.

He does the thing with the water again, and when she still doesn't wake, he does what he does best: He acts like an ass.

"Arise, take up your bed, and follow me," he hollers, paraphrasing Christ for the hell of it. If you're going to play the martyr card, you better be up for some heavy-duty ridicule, he reasons.

The lids of her eyes slowly open to just past half-mast. It's a rude awakening. Did she expect anything less – anything more from House?

He stands beside the bed dressed in striped pajama bottoms and a rumpled white t-shirt, close enough so she can feel the heat of his thigh near her hand.

A hand on her aching head, she starts to sit up, and then realizes she's naked except for the thin cotton sheet.

Whatever soothed her in sleep dissipates as the previous night floods her consciousness. Colors and sounds reverberate in her skull and she grips her head as pain moves behind her eyes. _Never knew that meth could make sex seem as necessary as a pulse_. As for wanting House? That has been her constant since she took the fellowship.

Last night his eyes fastened onto hers and even as she touched him, pushed him up against the back of the leather couch and traced his hardness with her fingertips, he resisted. Eventually he pulled her against him, and she felt his left knee grind between her legs. His mouth explored hers with ever deepening kisses that left her no doubt as to how much he wanted to be inside of her. When his tongue traced hers, flirted with her tongue, she felt like he was making her make room for him, and when he thrust it deep, she sucked the end of it so he knew how much she wanted all of him between her thighs.

Even now the thought of his hard cock in her hand, in her mouth, poised at her entrance, sent blood rushing to her face, aroused the pulse between her legs until she ached. It's more than that. She wants to feel his naked chest under her hands. She wants to kiss the soft flesh of his lower abdomen, to twirl her tongue in his naval, to lick lower. She longs to nip at his neck, to kiss along his collarbone, to hold his face between her hands and kiss him from every angle. She wants his eyes on her, everywhere, and then, his hands.

Last night, he wanted to know – he kept asking her why she was there. Why she really came over. She had admitted her fear of contracting HIV, but that was only a part of it.

Oh, Kalvin. Mr. Party and Play. Mr. Drugs and Sex. Mr. Spit Blood in my face. But she can't think straight, not really, not yet. House won't leave her in peace.

Cold water hits her face for a third time.

"My alarm clock has better manners than you do," she groans, her voice husky with sleep.

He takes a step back at the sound of her voice.

"If you were expecting a fairy tale kiss as a wake-up call then you slept in the wrong bed."

She tries for a smile. "Comparing me to Sleeping Beauty? Must make you the beast."

"Nope. Makes me a frog. One with no aspirations to be a prince. You don't know your fairy tales. Unhappy childhood?"

"Let's just say happy endings have never worked for me," she allows.

He slams the water glass down next to the Vicodin on his nightstand. The vial tips and pills spill. He pops a few more for good measure.

Grasping his cane, he pokes her with it methodically.

"You're pale. Those circles under your eyes could rival Joe Namath's on game day." Casting an unreadable look at the way the sheet clings to her curves, he adds, "You're naked." Licking his finger, he runs it over her shoulder and tastes it. "Sweatier than a Suma wrestler in a sauna. Pupils? Dilated. Diagnosis? Foreman would dismiss you as a junkie. Chase … would say your feelings for me are causing physical symptoms." House rubs the scruff of his chin, letting his words sink in. "They're both wrong. You secretly love Anthrax. The band, not the poison. Anyone ever tell you that speed metal has side effects? Like taking speed?"

She stops the end of his cane from ramming into her shoulder, grabbing it and pulling him closer, just to watch that _you better watch it_ look cross his face.

It's always a turn on.

"You'd think you were a world renown diagnostician, the way you talk," she says with a smile, hiking herself up on her elbows to survey him in a _quid pro quo_. "My turn."

She tilts her head at the chair that doubled as House's bed, the chair drawn up to the bed where she spent the night.

"Cushion's got an indentation in the shape of your … ass. You were there most of the night. Means you're not as immune to me as you'd like. Means on some level you care." Looking at his weary face, she continues. Tiny red veins crisscross the whites of his eyes like roads on a map. "Your eyes are bloodshot. You barely slept, and when you did, your face was pressed into the upholstery. I can see the pattern there." She narrows her eyes in exaggerated thought. "You … watched me sleep, naked."

He hears a trace of smugness in her voice.

"I hired you because you look good in a lobby. You look even better in my bed. But, hey. To you this stuff is old hat. You're the expert on bedside vigils."

He winces, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second as pain wrenches the remnants of his quadriceps.

The look she gives him falls short of pity but conveys caring.

For a long moment, she looks at him, at the empty chair. She fingers the cotton sheet. It covers her breasts, but reveals her sternum, clavicle, and shoulders.

She has beautiful bones.

He looks tired.

_If I could catch you at an unguarded moment, I'd stay right there beside you._

She sees what's in House's eyes, assesses his needs, and finds him wanting.

Wanting rest.

Wanting … her.

Wanting an intermission from the games.

Wanting the games to stop for a while.

She moves over on the big bed and pats the side she vacated.

"Get in."

Instead, he sits back down in the chair, cane between his legs. When he lowers his head and give her his patent stare, she stares back, and then smiles the tentative smile she gave him when she wished him a happy birthday the first year of her fellowship.

Those were the things about her that disarmed him.

Weariness washes over him and he remembers her soft skin beneath his hand as he trailed his fingers down her back during the night, the perfect roundness of her firm ass beneath his palm.

It would be so easy to join her on the bed.

"I … shouldn't have come here last night," she says, "but I did. Get in. I don't bite, House."

"Too bad. I was counting on it."

He hesitates. His head buzzes and a sharp high-pitched sound penetrates his eardrum. How much bourbon, exactly, did he down last night?

"House." She reaches out and touches his hip. "You're in pain."

"Oh! Is _that_ what's made the last half hour of consciousness a living hell? Thanks … for the news flash."

Unshaven, his scruff is dark and heading towards beard status, deepening the blue of his eyes. They're cloudy today, overcast.

She sighs. "What do you need to know about me? You want to know if once upon a time I was heavy? You want to know why I have a hard time telling parents that their newborn son didn't make it? You want to know about Tom?"

"Dead husband? Already know. He died. With you by his side. Last thing he saw was your face. Probably thought you could save him. You couldn't … save him. No one could."

He stands, relying on the arms of the chair to get to his feet. Resting his weight on his left leg, he looks down on her in the bed.

Two doors down, a rat terrier weighs in on the newspaper delivery cyclist with a series of raucous barks.

"When Tom died, I lost … the chance to have his baby. We tried to get pregnant. It's hard to have sex when you're sick from chemo and each time you thrust you have a coughing fit," she says, clearing her throat. "You think I married him because he was damaged, and that I needed … to be needed. Never factored in the kind of guy Tom was. You had to know Tom to know that while he was terrified of death, he had a sense of humor. He made me promise that I'd play the song 'American Pie' for him on his last day of life. Told me that for years he'd sung along with the line, 'This'll be the day that I die,' and he wanted to sing it on the day of his death. He thought it would be funny. That was Tom. My marriage? You'll never get to the bottom of it. But I promise you. Tom's cancer wasn't why I was with him. He was an original."

She's small in the king-sized bed. He can tell she's cold by her stiffened nipples, the Goosebumps on her arms, and the way she shivers. Her face is naked but composed, after the story about her husband.

"Move over."

"I already have," she replies, motioning at the side of the bed she vacated.

"Move further."

She slips across the sheets until a chasm spreads between her and him as he carefully lowers his weight onto the edge of the mattress. Hoisting the bum leg up on the bed, he swings the good one next to it until his long frame stretches out beside Cameron.

The pain has finally dulled to an ache enormous.

"You were never fat," he declares, sticking an arm behind his head on the pillow. "Saw you naked. No unsightly stretch marks. No loose rolls of skin."

She laughs.

He looks over at her. She lies on her side, gazing at him in the dim room.

"Why," she asks, her smile fading, "are you so determined to deny yourself pleasure?"

Despite the distance between them, she feels like the bed is a waterslide and she's poised at the top of it, about to slip down and into the warm embrace of the water. There, she's sure, she'll drown.

"Chicken mole ala Wilson. Riding my Repsol as if it were Angelina Jolie in a naughty negligee. Nailing a diagnosis before a patient kicks the big bucket in the sky. Being almost always eventually right. My pleasures are many. However it has been my experience that pleasure turns to pain, given enough time." He takes a breath. Exhales. "It would. With you."

"Because Stacy left you?"

She hears the creaking of the mattress as he shifts his weight. You don't need a measuring stick to know how far you are from the man you love – or how close. She remembers how their shoulders touched seated together at the Monster Trucks rally, leather on leather. She remembers his smell as he leaned toward her to point out the decals on Grave Digger, and the way he touched her elbow as they walked outside into the cool night air, munching at the wispy cotton candy.

"Because … your feelings for me make you do dangerous things. Of all the drugs you could take, you picked the one that's … toxic to humans. Heart failure. Brain damage. Stroke. Got a death wish?"

His leg itches, but he's afraid that if he moves, he'll bump her, and if his hand touches her bare skin again, it'll be a slippery slope. The distance between them is palpable, another presence in the bed. If it's disturbed, well, there's just no telling.

"Says the man who pops Vicodin the way Barry Bonds take steroids. Your bike? They don't call 'em donor cycles because they increase your life expectancy."

"You could have HIV. You need to get tested."

His own voice in the dark sounds clinical and matter of fact. He banishes thoughts of sick, emaciated Cameron and excises any evidence of caring from his intonation.

"It can wait."

"It can't. Not if you're going to keep showing up at my doorstep doing research for the Penthouse Forum."

_Christ_, he thinks. She's hot in a lab coat and reading glasses with her medical nametag, but on his stoop in faded jeans with that soft look of need in her eyes? _Can't face it again_.

"Can you honestly say that this surprised you? Me … getting high, showing up at your place? You think you had nothing to do with it? That it's all me, this … whatever's between us?" She lowers her voice to nearly a whisper as her fists clench beneath the sheets. It's how she keeps her hands off him.

His body heat spans the space between the two of them, warming her bare skin.

Does he know the way his eyes linger on hers, the nakedness revealed in them? Does he know the way those looks telegraph _want_ and _need_? He does a full body scan on her, performs exploratory surgery and then sews her up.

She expects him to stare at the ceiling or close his eyes or make a face or leave when he hears her questions. Instead, he turns in the bed, and props his head on his elbow, searching her eyes as if within them were a keepsake that once upon a time he'd misplaced.

Seconds pass, measured by the clunking hands of the mahogany clock. She feels the presence of his eyes on her face, reading it as if he traced its contours with his fingers.

"A five-part question. A good reporter would have covered the 'when,' 'where,' and 'what' as well as the 'how' and 'why.' When my parents came for dinner, you wanted to meet them. Probably wanted to meet them as much as you wanted solve the case. But you … turned down my mother's invitation to join us when you saw the look on my face."

"You already thanked me for that. So what's your point?"

"Wilson's right. You've rubbed off on me," he muttered. "My point is that you accuse me of going to any lengths to figure people out, but _you _want to know what makes people tick just as much as I do. You need to know … about me. Annoys the hell out of me, but I … like that about you," he says gruffly.

"So … what you're saying is you like me, and that annoys you. Liking me is not one of the Seven Deadly Sins," she protests.

"It should be."

She is silent, waiting for the question he will inevitably ask. It's not long before he speaks.

"Why did you come here last night, come to me?"

Sighing, she folds her slender arms beneath her head and stares at the ceiling.

"I know the odds, House, of my contracting the virus. But, let's say I'm infected with HIV. That happens, legal will try to dig up dirt on me. They'll look for evidence that I'm a junkie or a whore…"

"You turned tricks to pay for med school! I knew it," he can't help interjecting.

"… But they'd come up with … nothing." Her voice sounds small.

"Okay … so you're no Courtney Love. That so bad?"

"I can't remember the last time I had fun."

"You seemed to enjoy the Monster Trucks rally. At one point, if memory serves, you laughed so hard you spit cotton candy at me." His voice is warm.

She smiled to herself. _Well, there was that_.

"That was fun. But, I've taken no risks. I've never been sky diving, never had sex without a condom, never had a one night stand with a stranger …"

"You married terminal guy. That's … something."

"… And then I remembered something you said to me. 'If you really want to do something, you do it.' You want to know why I took street drugs and showed up at your door? It's simple. I said it last night. I'll say it once more. But after that, I'm done. So listen close."

She turns in the bed and rolls close to House, bridging the distance until her face nearly touches his. He can feel her breath on his cheek. Her body is a touch away, but they aren't touching. If either of them moves, they'll be on each other in an instant. As they stay like that, a millimeter away from contact, he feels his cock swell and grow hard. His heart knocks against his chest and he can't quite catch his breath. His mind is devoid of everything but her smell and the places where he knows he'll fit, especially between her legs where he wants to push aside the flesh and inch within. The space between their bodies is magnetic, electric. And still she doesn't speak. Is this a Zen metaphor, he wonders?

_I want to feel you. I need to know you. I have to have you. What do you want … to do?_

He's not sure if she said it or if it's simply what's between them, that which has always passed from her eyes to his, from his to hers.

He wants to fuck her, to spread her legs and go down on her until she screams. He wants to hold her until she stops shivering, to make room for him inside her. He knows she'll be small, but that makes him want her even more. He wants to crush her, to keep her from harm, to hammer into her, to slowly enter her, to tease her clit and take her from behind. He wants the full use of his leg, without pain. He wants to fuck her with his tongue and his hands and his stiffened, aching cock.

"Cameron," he says, his voice gravelly. Her name is a warning, but whether it's for her or for him, he's not sure. Her name is primal. It bubbles out of the depth of him and hangs in the air like a threat or a promise.

Warmth spreads through her limbs, flushing her face and finding the pulse between her legs. Her name on his lips is better than oysters on the half shell. Between her legs, she feels herself soften and grow damp with the thought of where they're headed.

Her face moves a fraction and she presses her mouth against his, so light it's barely a kiss, and pulls back to see his reaction.

His eyes darken with desire but he gently cups the back of her head and draws her mouth back to his, lazily exploring without tongue as the chemistry between them thrums. Her hands sneak beneath the hem of his tee and she runs them over his stomach and up his ribs until fingertips whisper across his nipples. They harden under her touch.

His kiss deepens and his tongue flirts with hers. She tugs the tip of his tongue, sucking it between her lips and he groans, imagining his prick sliding inside her mouth, her tongue flicking at the sensitive spot right beneath his head.

His hands find her ass under the sheet and he pulls her up against his warm, hard body, and when that's not enough, he pulls her on top of him.

The cotton of his tee, the cotton of his pajama bottoms incite her bare skin, but not as much as the hardness and heft of his erection pressing against her.

She peels his t-shirt over his head and tosses it to the floor, and he feels the hardened peaks of her small breasts against the bare skin of his chest.

Despite the thin material of his pajamas, his erection spans out under her nakedness.

He's big, she knows, from touching him last night, long and thick with a beautifully shaped head.

Her skin is silk under his palms and he kneads her buttocks, thumbs moving close to her clit but not quite touching it directly. He presses into her ass until she feels her vulva start to hum and rubs her clit against his leg in a desperate response.

She pulls him over so they lie facing each other and she fumbles with his pajama bottoms, tugging as he raises his pelvis up so she can free him. The garment is kicked to the foot of the bed and her hand slowly reaches out to touch him. Enough light filters into the room so he can see her hand hovering just above his massive erection. He knows that she knows that he can see how close she is to contact. Finally, she places a single fingertip on the head of his cock.

He holds his breath, closes his eyes.

With the ball of her thumb, she circles the swollen flesh, sticks her hand down between her legs, and the next thing he feels is her lubricated hand pulling down tight over his shaft. He imagines it's her mouth, although a part of him wants to explore the hot core of her and save the rest for later, after they sleep a little. Her hand is deft and she speeds up her motion, concentrating on the head and the first three or four inches of his cock.

"Wait." He grabs her wrist and pulls it away, opening his eyes and seeing her smiling down on him, a smile that manages to be hot and heartbreaking simultaneously. There's something of a wanton nun about her that inflames him.

He grasps her hips and pulls her up so she sits on his stomach, her legs falling open so he can see her sex through the dark, sexy curls. With his knuckles, he lightly nudges her clit, teasing her, and then he draws her closer and hikes himself up to kiss her mouth again. This time their kisses are knowing, carnal.

She says his name. Never Greg, nor does he want that. His name is a question mark.

As gracefully as his damaged thigh allows him, he flips her onto her back, and shoves her knees apart with his own knee, finding her softness with the tip of his prick. He wants to say things to her:

_Open up for me. Fuck, fuck, fucking. This is as hard as I'll ever be. Wider, now. Wider._

But he lets his body say what he needs to keep inside.

I'll be careful with you …

He spreads her legs further and nudges up against her opening.

"Condom," she gasps.

"Top drawer. Nightstand," is all he can manage.

She tears off the wrapper in frenzy and pushes the device over his largeness.

His eyes ask her if she's ready.

As an answer, she grasps him and pushes him against her. He takes it slow, although he feels like he's about to explode, rubbing her clit as he needles his way inside of her until he feels her hot muscles close around the length and heft of him. Once he's all the way in, he looks her in the eye, tracing her lower lip with a finger, and then covering her mouth with his. He thrusts, slowly and sweetly; every inch of her hot wetness surrounds him. He keeps kissing her, reluctant to break away except to look at her face and make sure it really is Cameron rising to meet his movements, Cameron so slight and slender underneath him, Cameron moaning as he pulls almost all the way out of her, rotates around her g-spot, then shoves himself all the way back inside.

Now his weight is on her, now all of him is finally all the way in her. Tears drop from her eyes as she clings to him, legs circling up around his buttocks. He pulls her legs further up his back as he thrusts deeper, moving around inside her as heat floods through her whole body. He can't seem to stop kissing her, to remind her that they connect above and below. The kisses are as potent as the sex. As intimate a coupling.

She grips his back and urges him faster, deeper and he complies, as he feels her open up even more for him. She loosens her legs from around him and slides them down. The change in positioning and her hands on his ass, squeezing, make him gasp as heat flows from the base of his cock all the way up.

"You are going to come," she says as the sweet sensation of completely giving in to another and letting go spread over her clit and her muscles contract around him.

Inside her, his cock alters, quivers and then she feels the power of his climax rock both of them.

Together their limbs tangle on the bed. He eases himself onto his good side and takes her with him, holding her in his arms as they try to breath again.

"Ever see the virus under the gels? It's … ominous in its beauty," he says once he can speak. "You get tested tomorrow or you're fired."

"And you?" She looks at his penis as he rolls off her. Even flaccid it's beautiful.

"I'll go with you. Get tested, too. We keep doing this, it might be good to come clean."

She puts her hand on his scruff, leans in, and kisses a path along his jaw to his mouth.

"Okay."

"I'm almost always eventually an ass," he cautions her lightly as his lips move against hers.

"Works for me."

** FIN**


End file.
